Mahinda is the ‘game master’, not Ranil - AKD

• Says move by the Cabinet to bring in a new amendment is only to create confusion among the people over the Presidential election
• Tells Parliament that there is no need to bring in a Constitutional amendment to restrict the President’s term to five years as the Supreme Court has clearly specified that the President’s term is five years

By Ajith Siriwardana and Yohan Perera

Claiming that President Ranil Wickremesinghe is not a ‘game man’ or crafty man like former President Mahinda Rajapaksa, National People’s Power (NPP) leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake said yesterday all plans by Ranil Wickremesinghe so far had been failures and that all his plans to prevent the Presidential election too will be a failure.  

Moving the adjournment debate on holding the Presidential election duly in the specified time period, he told Parliament that there is no need to bring in a Constitutional amendment to restrict the President’s term to five years as the Supreme Court has clearly specified that the President’s term is five years.  

He said the move by the Cabinet to bring in a new amendment is only to create confusion among the people over the Presidential election.  

Dissanayake said there was no provision in the Constitution to bring in an amendment to the Constitution as an emergency Bill as 21st Amendment clearly says that emergency Bills can only be brought for matters concerning national security and in cases of disaster situations.  

“There is a notion in the country that Ranil is crafty and a ‘game man’. I would say he is not crafty or a ‘game man’, but Mahinda Rajapaksa is the master of games. He has broken political parties and taken over parties. Ranil is not a ‘game man’. He played games within UNP for 30 years. But, he lost even the parliamentary election. He has failed in all his games in the past and he will not be successful in his moves to prevent the Presidential election,” he said.